


there's a ghost in the mirror

by sunshine_states



Series: Triptych [2]
Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo, Winternight Series - Katherine Arden
Genre: F/M, Gen, I guess this is officially a crossover now, Non-Graphic Violence, Russian Mythology, Unhealthy Relationships, Unreliable Narrator, gratuitous Koschei the Deathless references, saint shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-07-28 12:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20063773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshine_states/pseuds/sunshine_states
Summary: You should be careful which stories you choose to tell your children.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Paper Route's "Glass Heart Hymn."

He’s still feverish when his mother comes to him.

“Lie still,” she says, as he struggles onto his elbows. Her hand pushes him down, firm. “I need you alive, boy.”

He hears past the hard words to the affection tucked between them, like sweets in a child’s pocket. And smiles. Her fingers skim his forehead. Water is tipped between his cracked and bleeding lips. He swallows, nods.

“Our family lived by a lake,” she says, after a moment. When he looks at her, she is watching him, dark eyes intent in the harsh and lovely planes of her face. “They tended horses. There was an old Grisha there, and her two daughters. Varvara was only an _otkazat'sya, _but Tamara had the gift.”

He frowns, a fishbone of apprehension sticking in his throat. His mother only mentions their family’s past to make a point.

“Tamara could have been a queen,” his mother says. She’s stroking his hair as a girl might a frightened horse, a note of bitter amusement in her voice. “A healer, a Saint. She had more power in her little finger than the _Ulle _has in his entire body.”

“But,” Eryk says.

“But,” his mother says, “A handsome stranger arrived at her mother’s doorstep. He had great magic himself, and in his hand was a bridle wrought in gold and worked with a mysterious power, a piece of the making at the heart of the world. It could hold any creature fast and deliver its power into hands of the one who wielded it. The handsome stranger swam with Tamara under the moonlight, and before long she had agreed to help him steal one of her mother’s magnificent horses. They rode away in the dead of night – he triumphant, riding a horse as golden as the sun; she, weeping, begging the beast’s forgiveness and loving her beautiful monster all the while.”

“What happened then?” Eryk said, quietly. His leg throbs, and he reaches down to rub it. 

His mother bats his hands away. “Stop that. Tamara fled from him. Her mother had disowned her, her lover had shown his true face, and she had nothing. She arrived at the gates of a great city in rags, ruined, desolate. The king of the realm fell in love with her beauty and married her, but soon enough the gilded cage of the palace confused her wits. Even her daughter called her mad, in the end.”

Eryk’s stomach is roiling – from the pain or the story, he isn’t sure. “_Madraya_…”

She kisses his forehead. Her expression, when she leans back, is not unkind.

“That is the price of love,” she says. “Ruin and desolation. Don’t allow it to destroy you, too.”

He grows as other boys do, swift as a reed pushing its way out the water. There is a stage where he is all lanky limbs and terrible skin, and he runs away from his mother’s lessons to wander through meadows and wade in swift, nameless streams. He grows into his limbs, learns to cut his own hair. He kisses foolish maidens in the winter woods and dances with beautiful young men in the market square.

He is lovely, they say; he draws the eye. No one can say what it is, this allure beyond his sharp cheekbones and black curls.

“The last time I felt this way,” one of his lovers muses, her soft hands buried in his hair, “I was standing on the edge of a cliff.”

“I frighten you?” he teases, leaning in to kiss her nose.

“No,” she says. “Yes. Both.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“What I _mean,_” she says, exasperated, “is that when you’re staring death in the face you know that you are _alive. _Maybe for the first time. You see what you have. And you can’t look away.”

“Am I Death?” he asks.

“No, Alyosha,” she says fondly. “But if Death were a man, I wonder if he wouldn’t look a little like you.”

His name is Alyosha. His name is Kolya and Sasha and Pyotr. He draws names from the air, from his mother’s stories, from the lips of _otkazat'sya _traders in the town square. He can become anyone, if he likes, but in his heart he is always Aleksander Morozova.

Centuries pass, but very little changes. The Grisha are still hunted like animals. And because he is Aleksander Morozova, and not some insignificant, sniveling fool who bows his head and accepts injustice as his due, he sits up late with a candle spilling wax across his desk, drawing and re-drawing models for amplifiers of his own. If he only had something – a, a jewel, or a bracelet, nothing conspicuous, just enough to wear beneath his kefta – he could be stronger. _Better._ A fortress against the world’s many ills. Annika would never have ambushed him in the wood if he’d had an amplifier of his own.

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” his mother warns him. He rolls his eyes. “Don’t make faces at me, boy. This is dangerous.”

“I think I know the dangers,” he says. “I have lived three hundred years, _Madraya._ Do you take me for some green apprentice?”

“No,” she says, harsh with pain. “But I see my father in you.”

“I may be Ilya Morozova’s descendant,” he says, irritated, “But I won’t make his mistakes.”

He does.

His lovers die, and so do his friends. Only the Fold is eternal. His mother calls it _hubris. _The man who was once Aleksander Morozova adjusts the collar of his gold-hemmed kefta and shrugs. Some experiments simply don’t turn out the way you expect. What are a few witless farmers? They would have died in half a century, anyway.

“What happened to the stranger?” he asks his mother once.

She throws more wood on the fire. “Which one? Everyone is a stranger to the likes of us.” 

“The one Tamara fell in love with.”

“Oh, him,” she says, dismissive. “Tamara’s granddaughter killed him. Haven’t I told you this story already, boy? My grandmother the Inferni. The wizard Deathless. You were sick, remember?”

He’d thought it was just a fairytale. “So was he? Deathless?”

_Like us, _he doesn’t say.

“Not in the end,” she says. “He had a weakness. They always do.”

(Here is another story his mother tells: a death-god met a witch among the snowdrops. He thought to use her power for his own purposes, but she ensnared him with her sea-green eyes and her fearless spirit. He was so enamored that he tore out his heart and gave it to her, fresh as new snow in the palm of her hand. When she died, so did he, and so his long life was ended. The price of love is ruin, always.)

Alina Starkov is a thin and spindling thing, dark-eyed and dark-haired, wearing her exhaustion like a badge of honor. But the power in her – that is attractive. He forgets the sallow face and the resentful stare in the radiance of her gift. And beneath the calm he has cultivated over centuries, there is jubilation.

_I can use this._

He charms her; this is easy. He is charming already. But Alina Starkov has been starved of affection all her life, her only companion that blue-eyed tracker who gazed at her with such adoring desperation in the tent. He is well out of the way now. The Darkling has seen to it.

But Alina Starkov surprises him. She has a dry sense of humor. She is unimpressed with the grotesque splendor of the Little Palace. She flatly refuses to wear his colors, as if half her peers wouldn’t kill to attain such an honor. And she asks far more questions than she should.

(Once there was a death-god - )

He contemplates the idea of luring her into his bed. It would be a distraction, at least. And she certainly doesn’t lack for power. A lover who wouldn’t wither like a flower on the stalk, who might match him in power but be contained, controlled? Who could never slip the bridle and run away from him? It’s an alluring thought.

He catches himself wanting to make her smile. She laughs in his hearing once, and his entire being attunes to the sound. It unsettles something in his being, to feel this way. As if a silver samovar left to gather dust has been taken out and polished.

“Why do you care what I think?” Alina asks him, as they leave his mother's hut behind. The cold air has put an attractive flush in her cheeks. 

“I don’t know,” he says, affecting bewilderment. “But I do.”

Easy to kiss her. He has kissed a thousand lips before. Easy because she is new at this, easy because he is not. Easy because men and women stare at him when he walks past, because they know a cliff's edge when they see one. 

Love is a cage. Love is a madwoman in a palace and a bridle on a horse and a god of death, fading, fading. He is not in love with Alina Starkov.

But oh, for a moment under the lamplight, he almost wishes he were.


	2. Chapter 2

Once upon a time, there was a little boy, and he lived as other little boys live – simply, without fear or understanding. His mother had a golden braid. His father had a thatch of wren-colored hair. And the boy himself had blue, blue eyes, the color of flames and winter ice.

“There have always been blue eyes in our family,” his mother told him. “Ever since the beginning. Your Baba used to say the ones with blue eyes are blessed.”

“Blessed?” said the little boy, hopefully.

She kissed his forehead and then, as if in ritual greeting, both eyelids and the tip of his nose.

“Yes,” she said, with mischief. “They can find their way through any blizzard. They can make rabbits out of rocks. And when they go into the other world, the god of death shakes them by the hand.”

The next day, the war came to their village. His mother hid him in the cellar, and then she went up and took a bullet to the chest, and when she reached the starlit forest beyond life, the god of death did indeed take her by the hand. He didn’t shake it, though: instead, he pressed it gravely to his heart and led her through the dark. 

The little boy knew nothing of this. He knew nothing of his father, who had been cut down in the first defense of the village. And he knew nothing of the death god. He slept in the dirt, dreamed fretful dreams, and nibbled listlessly at the stores of rye bread and hard cheese his parents kept in the cellar.

The next thing he knew, daylight was cutting across the floor like a knife. And a man said, soft,

“There you are.”

“Where’s Mama?” the little boy mumbled, as the stranger swept him into his arms.

“Hush, child,” the stranger said. His cloak was brown. His eyes were gray. He strode out of the cellar with his hand pressing the little boy’s face into his shoulder.

“I can’t _see,_” the little boy complained. He smelled cooked pork and wood ash. He was sure the soldiers were gone by now. His parents would be worried. “Where’s Papa?”

“They are safe, Malyen Oretsev,” said the stranger. The day was clear and bright. The scorched trees were putting out leaves in a dozen different shades of green. “They sent me to collect you.”

Later, Mal won’t remember any of this. He has only the vague impression of kindness, cured fish and good bread, and a hand pointing out the constellations one by one.

_Do you see that one, Mal? That’s the Shorn Maiden. As long as you can see her, you are never lost._

Ana Kuya thinks that the man who brought him to Keramzin was a monk.

“He had the look,” she sniffs. “Bookish. Halfway into the next world already.”

They don’t encourage them to remember their pasts, but as a child Mal likes to imagine that he was important. A nephew of a holy man, maybe. Someone who couldn’t care for an orphan child but wanted the best for them.

“Or maybe you were so stinky he wanted to get rid of you,” Alina suggests on the one occasion he says this out loud.

Mal throws a pillow at her. “Shut up!”

“I’m serious! When is the last time you _willingly _had a bath? You smell like a boot.”

He throws another pillow at her. She squeaks and then breaks into laughter.

“An _old _boot,” she says, tossing it back.

Mal scowls and sulks out into the garden to gaze at the stars.

Here’s the thing about the Shorn Maiden: she really does guide the lost. The tip of her bone needle is the North Star, so she’s there in all seasons, a touchstone for sailors and soldiers, a symbol of arcane knowledge for astrologers, and, on nights like these, a listening ear for a lonely boy.

“It’s not fair,” he says. “I don’t even know where I come from! Other people get to have _families._ Orphans just get to _be grateful._”

The Shorn Maiden glitters sympathetically. Mal yanks up a wad of grass and throws it, aware that he’s acting younger than his eleven years and too full of thwarted rage to stop himself.

“It’s not fair,” he repeats, numbly.

“It’s not fair,” Alina agrees. She settles down beside him and takes his hand. Mal, scowling, turns his head away. “Hey. _Hey. _I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“You didn’t,” he grumbles, because it’s stupid to be mad about the boot comment, anyway. “I’m – “any words he has cut too close to the truth, so he waves his hand around instead. “You know?”

When he turns to look at her, Alina is looking back. Her dark eyes are full of a terrible understanding.

“Yeah,” she says. “I know.”

In the villages along the southern border, it’s good luck to sing “The Chains of the Winter-King” at weddings. As far as Mal can tell, it tells the story of a Grisha girl, her knife, and her lover, who is either Adezku or a powerful Squaller. The details vary from town to town, but every version of the song contains a truly impressive number of euphemisms for sex.

“That makes sense,” Ruby remarks. They’re about three days away from the Sikurzoi. It’s the wedding season. Mal is pretty sure that if they have to hear that fucking tune even one more time, someone is going to end up dead.

“Really?” Alina asks. She’s leaning against Mal, nibbling listlessly on a peach. “It’s basically a song about amnesia and animal murder.”

“And unlawful imprisonment,” Alexei adds. Alexei has been reading too many legal books lately.

“But she gets her man in the end,” Ruby says. She tips a wink at Mal. “Or maybe I’m just a sucker for blue eyes.”

“You’re a sucker, all right,” Alexei mumbles.

Ruby says something nasty in return, and they’re off. Mal meets Alina’s eyes.

_Do you remember this?_

_No, _she mouths. She looks almost stricken. They _should_ remember this. They were born here and apparently it’s a very common song. But this is new. All of this is new. It’s as if someone’s reached in and scooped their memories of family and home and belonging out with a spoon.

Sometimes, Mal really _hates _Keramzin.

They win the war. They kill the Darkling. And once he’s recovered enough to walk around without falling on his face, Mal goes to the Shorn Maiden.

“I’m tired,” he says. “I’m just…tired.”

She doesn’t answer. She never does. But for the first time, it feels like she actually _hears_ him. Impossible, maybe, but so is a flying ship. So is sunlight in the Fold. He lies down in the grass and sleeps, fingers resting on the knot of scar tissue where the knife went in. When he wakes up, Alina is tucked into his side. The sun is shining. They are both mortal now, bruised by battle and facing an uncertain future, but Mal is so happy that he lies there without saying a word until Oncat wanders over to chew on his hair.

(Once there was a death-god who threw away his crown for a witch. That much of Baghra's story is true. They kissed under eclipses, danced in the pearlescent halls of the sea-king, dined with merchants in Sarai and sat down with monks and heretics to debate the secrets of the universe. There were horses to tend, and children to teach, and a better world to build together. And in the end, yes, they died.

But here is the important detail that Baghra left out: first, they lived.)

A week after the strange dreams start, Mal wakes up with the conviction that he’s left something important in the garden. He untangles himself from a grumbling Alina and goes downstairs. The sun hasn’t risen yet, but the horizon is limned in an anticipatory shade of green. He steps outside and the smell of meadowsweet and autumn hay hits him like a wave.

The man examining the morning glories is not a stranger.

“You brought me here,” he says.

“I did,” says the man. He makes a gesture of invitation, and Mal, against his own better judgement, moves closer. “I was told you would be safe here.”

“I was.”

“But lonely.” His eyes are the same unsettling stormy-gray as the Darkling’s, and they read Mal like a book. “I am sorry for that.”

Mal thinks of Alina. “I’m not.”

The man smiles faintly and returns to his contemplation of the morning glories.

“You never told me your name,” Mal says, watching him. This close, he can see that the man is more smoke than form, like fog in the moments before the morning sunlight drives it away.

“Sasha,” says the man.

“You saved me.”

“It was all I could do.” Sasha tilts his head back. Above them, the Shorn Maiden and the Bear. Mal remembers those soldier’s hands teaching him the constellations. “Yet I wish that I could have taken you to your people.”

“My people are dead,” Mal says.

A faint, self-deprecating smile crosses Sasha’s face. “Not all. Only most.”

_We never stopped looking, _the woman said in the dream. Mal huffs irritably and draws his robe more closely around his shoulders.

“I want people to stop speaking in code,” he says.

Sasha laughs. “You take after Vasya.”

“Who’s –“ Mal begins, frustrated.

“Ilya Morozova’s mother,” Sasha says, and Mal closes his mouth. “She had little enough patience with riddles.”

“You knew her?” Mal says, feeling stupid for even asking the question.

“Your stories are mistaken,” Sasha says abruptly. His eyes are still fixed on the stars, full of an affection as old as Ravka itself. “The Shorn Maiden is not holding a needle, bone or otherwise.”

“She isn’t?”

“No,” Sasha says. “She is holding a _knife._”


End file.
